Chaos incursions

Let's start off meta. The basic problem with the armless wonder is that he's obliged to job for the Imperials and hardly ever gets solid victories, so its hard to take him seriously as an Apocalyptic Threat to the Imperium. (Strangely, the Tyrannids and Necrons don't have this problem - probably because they are put across as newer threats, rather than the old and often-vanquished enemy.)

To resolve that in the Hektor Heresy, my thinking was that the Heralds of Hektor remain splintered for an extended period and that figures from the other Traitor Legions (+Warbands) lead the incursions through to M37 or so. The Heralds are eventually pulled back together due to the meddling of Pallas Eugenesis and Cassandor Honorius, who reconcile their differences to push young Elenkor Dominatus as the new big bad. Because Elenkor is relatively late arriving, he doesn't need to have a long battle record - his victories can be of the "looming threat" type rather than "and now I will attempt to vanquish a planet of guardsmen for the tenth time".

My conception to fix this issue was have the Legionary Wars continue for slightly longer and have the establishment of the Primordial Brotherhood(Our Black Legion) be a rougher road than the Black Legion's ascension. However, this doesn't stop Black Crusades from happening. But these are far less in number and become more serious with every passing Crusade. I'm thinking Four in total.

The Crusades will be successful, too. But between Crusades there are periods of recession and flip-flopping of the territories won and achievements proclaimed. Chaos has moments of rapid expansion, sudden control and dash the Imperials. But infighting sets in after the initial successes, the figures who are killed or fall out of favor leading to mass rebellion. Then, the Imperium has grown back in strength and strikes back.


For Elenkor, I want him to lead the Fourth and Final Crusade. The other 'Warmasters' leading the previous Crusades were good...but he'll be hyped up as better. No, not just better. He will be more. Greater.

There's another option, too.

Black Crusades are not a machination of the Armless Wonder, they're a blanket term for major Chaos incursions.

Not Armagheddon, Aubrey's returning fight, et al would all be considered "Black Crusades" of varying intensity.

They specifically military incursions made by the Black Legion Merrill.

But we don't have a Black Legion. We have a NOT!Black Legion, but unless they carry the title, using that term to describe their major campaigns makes little sense.

Let's just leave them under the working title, "Chaos Incursions" and work out the catchy names later.

Alexandri of Rosskar wrote:They specifically military incursions made by the Black Legion Merrill.

Actually that isn't entirely accurate.
There are a lot of "Other known" Black Crusades, involving Daemon Princes (both singularly devoted and undivided), and even some non-primarch champions. Its just the "most devastating" crusades that are under Abaddon's control.
sources:
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Black_Crusade#Other_known_Black_Crusades
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Crusade

And Abaddon's Black Crusades weren't attempts at one-hit-killing the Imperium, or attempting to initiate the Heresy again, because neither is feasible for the broken Traitor forces, and the first is foolhardy at best. Abaddon plays the strategic game, *for* chaos, through the mind of chaos: ie he often picks targets and chooses objectives that hold symbolic more than strategic or literal value (equivalent to Stalingrad or Thermopylae for example).


At any rate, I like Alex's idea of the legionary wars being longer, although I would question how enough manpower survives to actually threaten the Imperium after...
But having the Crusades be incursions under different leaderships could be interesting; less focused on the notBlack Legion, and more on the danger of chaos itself. I think that would also help negate some of the "13 tries and counting" issue Abaddon has.